UMBC Gender and Women's Studies Students Write Back

Project Clothesline

Project Clothesline is a nationwide project that documents the experiences of survivors of sexual abuse and assault. Survivors and people who knew victims make T-shirts about their experiences. These shirts are then displayed publicly to highlight the issue of violence against women.

Project Clothesline at UMBC

The Women’s Center at UMBC takes part in this project. The shirts are displayed twice a year. During relationship violence awareness month in October, and again for sexual violence awareness month in April. I saw the clothesline last year, and it really hit me.

The clothesline gives survivors, and the people who knew victims a chance to talk about their experiences. The stories displayed sometimes talk about hope, sometimes talk about pain. The T-shirts illuminate the multitude of experiences people have with abuse and assault. It is an opportunity to show the world what being a survivor/victim means. For me, it was a chance to come out to myself and my friends as a survivor.

My T-shirt “I’m STILL finding pieces that are MISSING, it’s so hard to be strong.”

Last week I made a T-shirt in the women’s center to add to the display. Project Clothesline gave me a chance to be a communicative body, to share my personal feelings and story with the UMBC community. It was a really cathartic and healing experience for me. I was able to add my voice to others, to talk about what it means to be a survivor.

It is sometimes comforting and sometimes terrifying to see so many other people who have suffered from abuse and assault. Project Clothesline is a chance to highlight the individuality of violence. Each of our experiences is separate. Each of experiences means something different to us.

Through Project Clothesline I was able to tell my story, to add my voice to the chorus of survivors.

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6 Responses

This is a beautiful post. I appreciate the simplicity of the writing, because I think the subject speaks for itself. What a powerful thing to finally be able to open up about such a difficult and terrible experience. I really appreciate the Clothesline project for allowing people to have a voice who maybe aren’t in a place to verbally express their stories. I’m glad you felt some relief in sharing your story. I wish it was comforting to say you’re not alone, but at least in that knowledge you know that your bravery gives others courage too.

I can completely understand. I think the moment that sticks with me the most is last year at Take Back the Night when I decided kind of at the last minute to get up and share my story. Thinking back to that still makes me feel like I’m going to vomit. It’s rough to talk about it, but it is also amazing the relief that comes with sharing. You are amazing and I love you.

I love how you wrote this post. The post itself is very strong, but written in a very simplistic way. I have to agree with you about clothe line project and how comforting it is. I see this project as type of art therapy. I believe it is very important for our society to hear about the story’s that happens in the society, and this project is a great way for that.
I belie in the power of story sharing, I really appreciate your post and the shirt that is now the collection.

Thanks so much for sharing your experience with this. I was able to see the project displayed last year when it was up on campus and I was incredibly moved by what I saw on those t-shirts. I remember seeing one shirt that said something like “7pm Flat Tuesdays” in reference to when and where their assault occurred and I will never forget the feeling that particular shirt gave me. I got chills looking at it, and couldn’t get it out of my head for the rest of the week. I’ve been very interested in this topic for a long time but it took seeing that shirt for a lot of this stuff to really hit home. It’s amazing what a simple project like this can accomplish and the thoughts it can provoke.